ONE of the biggest and best known cattle breeding aggregations in southern Australia, “Jeogla” and “Wallamumbi” at Armidale, is back in play after a decade of Roche family ownership.
Previously held for a century by the Wright family, the two iconic stations have been listed for sale by tender as a combined walk-in, walk-out proposition including 7000 breeding cows.
Elders and Philip Jarvis and Associates of Armidale are jointly handling the prestigious sale, which has already attracted overseas interest.
Advertising is due to commence next week.
The sale package involves just under 12,000 hectares of prime, high-rainfall New England Eastern Fall grazing country with total carrying capacity of up to 16,000 head of cattle.
Both properties are famous for their respective cattle herds, whose VIV (Jeogla) and V2V (Wallamumbi) brands have direct lineage to the first Herefords brought to Australia.
Bi-annual production sales established on both properties by the Wrights are still conducted by the present owners, the first for this year being scheduled for March 13 when 2500 head of EU-accredited steers and heifers will go under the hammer.
Bill and Imelda Roche, who made a fortune from establishing and later selling the Nutrimetics skin care business, bought “Jeogla” in 1998 and “Wallamumbi” two years later.
No prices were disclosed for the privately-transacted sales, which were controversially forced on the former Wright family owners by their longtime lender, ANZ.
Local analysts at the time valued “Wallamumbi” at between $7 million and $8m (bare), while “Jeogla” was passed in at auction for $5.75m before being sold privately.
Both “Jeogla” and “Wallamumbi” had previously been held under the family company, P.A. Wright and Sons, until 1977 when an asset split saw Bruce and his son Rick Wright take “Jeogla” and Bruce’s half-brother David “Wallamumbi”.
Bruce Wright died in 1995 and David in 2006, while Rick - now living in the Upper Hunter with his wife Barbie - continues to rail against his family’s dispossession.
Tenders for the sale of “Jeogla”/“Wallamumbi” will close on April 4.
